Had the oddest phone message today when I got home from work. It was a lady from the Michigan University (Michigan State? Don’t remember exactly) Law School. Apparently, they’ve received a package that was supposed to go to me. And it’s been a number of places so far, she said, according to the invoice. They’re going to mail it on. Hopefully this is, indeed, the Big George tape that I ordered and *not* another 6 volume set of Great Expectations!

I’ll keep you posted as I find out more.

(It’s storming again here – hope the power doesn’t go out again! I’m getting tired of resetting my clocks!)

At least three of my LJ friends have birthdays today. So Happy Birthday to alryssa, indefatigable42, and nexstarman! Hope y’all had a great day!

This cake only works if you’ve got fixed width fonts… So I’ve tried to switch this to one of ’em. Anyhoo, let’s hear it for ASCII art!
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Since yesterday I spent my LJ entry talking about my Quest for Yet Another McCoy Audio, I neglected to write about my Exciting Adventure with No Electricity!

Sunday night, around 1am, we got a storm from hell. So I got up and shut all the windows, turned on the A/C, turned off my computer (after checking on Kings Of Chaos and my little elves) and returned to bed. I tried to fall asleep and after awhile, noticed that, between the lightning flashes, it seemed darker. Maybe the streetlight across the way was out? I looked behind me, and sure enough, my clock was out too. Since we’d had a bout of no electricity recently (welcome to Spring!) I still had my emergency flashlight and travel alarm by the bed. I set the travel alarm to ring at 6:15am and tried to sleep.

The morning comes and I awake to a phone call. Mom’s on the line and tells me that the power is out and she was afraid I might not wake up in time. I said that I’d set my travel alarm when the power went out. “Oh, for what time?” she asked. I told her and she replied “But it’s after 6:30 now.” I thanked her and checked my travel alarm. Gee, I’d set it an hour early, apparently, the other night. It said it was 5:40am. So I get up and get into the bathroom. Leo reluctantly followed (which should have been my second giveaway) and as I sat on the toilet, I looked at my watch. It seemed to agree with my travel alarm. Oh… A final check was in the kitchen – I couldn’t read the numbers on my bathroom scale (surely you keep *your* bathroom scale in the kitchen?) which I usually can at that time of the morning. “Ah, thanks mom” I thought, as I chuckled and headed back to bed.

A bit before 6:15 (the *real* 6:15) I got another phone call. “I’m sorry,” she says as I answer. I just laughed. She tried to blame dad, but he did tell her it was 5:30 when she woke up and asked him for the time. She figured it couldn’t be that early, so he said “well, then it’s 6:30” and that’s when she called. Still, I’m glad she called – it’s nice that she thought to help out.

I got up for real this time. And got yet another phone call. I thought, as I was heading for the phone, “bet this is Mary Jo, telling me there’s a delay.” Sure enough, we were on a 2 hour delay. It was nearly 7am and there still was no power at the school or throughout most of town. I finished getting ready and decided, since I had no computer to occupy myself, I’d go next door and chat with the parentals. Turns out, since dad couldn’t make mom coffee without electricity, they were going out for breakfast. I’d already had breakfast, but I couldn’t say no to second breakfast. We went to Steak and Shake and I had an egg, cheese & bacon sammich on a bagel. And water. It was yummy.

We got home and found that the power was back on. So I raced home to check on my Elves and spend my gold, then I headed on to the school. Where I had 3 servers off, 1 with a hard drive error message (even though it really didn’t have a hard drive error) and the other two servers OK. I got everyone running again and had to stuff some people’s quick launch icons back into their accounts because they were lost when the user logged onto the computer before the servers were running. I really need to look into getting a better UPS – one that can talk to my servers (even the Linux box) and turn them off properly when the power goes out.

We’ve still got another week and a half before school is out, so anything can happen, stormwise. But I think we can (heh) weather it out.

One of these days I’ll write a fascinating entry about addiction and obsession, but for now, I’ve got a side-story about it.

As many of you may suspect, I am a bit of a Sylvester McCoy fan. So I have a tendency to seek out things that he’s performed in and, if I can purchase it, I will. When I discovered that he’s gotten into reading children’s books, I was most delighted. His readings of Philip Ardagh’s Eddie Dickens Trilogy made me into an Ardagh fan. I was also able to buy his reading of Let’s Do the Pharaoh by Jeremy Strong. However. my luck in obtaining Big George, as written by Eric Pringle and read by Sylvester McCoy, has been nil. Couldn’t get the book from Amazon.co.uk or another UK online bookstore which listed it. So I went to the source. To Chivers Press.

Well, to tell the rest of this story, let me paste, for your enjoyment, the e-mail which I sent to Chivers today. (BTW, they are also known as Audio Book Collection and they’re located in Bath, UK.)

On 12 Feb 2004, I ordered the audio book BIG GEORGE from your company. On 20 Feb, US$30.13 was charged to my credit card by your company. However, I never did receive the item in question. A month later, I wrote an e-mail via your contact page regarding the lack of the audio tape. I was assured by Peter Royle that the parcel left the warehouse on 26 Feb and to wait another 10 days or so. I was given ref #227715 in that e-mail.

On 7 Apr 2004, I e-mailed Peter Royle to say that I had still not received the package. I asked what the next course of action was. He responded on the 20th to say he would send another. I confirmed the shipping address and waited yet again.

About the time I thought I should send another e-mail (that is, last week) I received a phone call from WorldNet Shipping which said that they had a package for me but to an address that was undeliverable. Rather odd as I have many packages delivered to my address, but I gave them my post office box number and that seemed to satisfy them. I was informed the item was an audio tape. I was excited – maybe I’d finally get the tape!

Well, today there was a package for me at the post office. Strangely enough, there were two addresses on it. Mine, obviously, but also a Mrs A Harmon of [address cut from LJ for privacy reasons]. I opened it on the spot to discover it was *not* BIG GEORGE as I had ordered but a 6-tape set of GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Argh!

So now, Mrs A Harmon is probably waiting on her set of GREAT EXPECTATIONS and may even have my BIG GEORGE. And I’m still without the original item that I ordered. Do you folks actually *have* BIG GEORGE? I see that it’s still listed in your catalog. Is there any way that I’ll be able to get it? Or will you refund my money? What should I do about the 6-tape set of GREAT EXPECTATIONS? Has Mrs A Harmon contacted you regarding a lost package yet?

I hope that someone will be able to help me out here. My main goal is to get the original tape that I ordered, but if that is an impossible task, I would like my US$30.13 back, please. Thank you.

*sigh* I’ll be interested to know what they’ll do next.

I planted flowers today! I have window boxes – one long one in front of the large picture window in front and two smaller ones on two back windows. On the way home from church (dad was preaching at the Unitarian Universalist church in El Dorado) dad and I stopped at Walmart and I bought a flat of Petunias. I got a variety of colors and I don’t even know which ones I got. But at least I got purple in the mix. 🙂

It’s a bit early yet for me to get photographs, but if they survive the next few weeks, I think they’ll be very pretty. I’ll admit, I got the flowers to impress judiang and elsaf when they’re here next weekend. But as dad says, if I pretend to be a good house owner, I’ll eventually become a good house owner. 🙂

Two of our high school teachers are expecting little ‘uns to appear this summer. So today, we had a baby shower for the pair of them. Kim is expecting her second child in August, but as we missed out on her first baby shower (because she was off having the baby prematurely) it seemed appropriate to have a shower for her second. She brought little Kaden with her (he just celebrated his first birthday on Monday) and he was awful cute. Ann is expecting her first child in July. So this was also her first baby shower.

It was held at one of my co-workers houses off on the other side of Troy. I hadn’t been to her house since I was a senior in high school. We had a cast party for our play there. But I did remember how to get there. I was the second person to show up. The media center lady was the first and I was right behind. Once everyone had arrived, we played a standard Baby Shower Game(TM). They brought out a tray full of baby items and went through them all. Then it was taken away and we had to write down everything that we could remember. Of the 25 items, I was rather pleased with myself for remembering 17. I did the worst in the room! My memory sucks. 😛

Thank goodness they didn’t make us taste different baby food flavors and try to guess what they were. Deanna, my cousin, devised that game for the baby shower she held for one of her sisters-in-law. Blech – I really felt bad for my cat after that. I figured if the food we’re giving babies tastes that bad, cat food must be even worse! (No wonder Leo loves raw tofu, something with practically no flavor must be better than cat food.)

The ladies opened their presents next. I went in on a group gift for Kim and that was a stroller to hold two little ones. So Kaden will be able to keep an eye on his younger brother. I got Ann’s little one some classic baby toys: a Rock-A-Stack and Baby’s First Blocks. I also got a little toy monkey that was very soft to the touch. And it’s good that I thought to get Kaden a little soft teddy bear since he was also at the party.

After gifts, we had lunch – egg salad mini-sammiches, broccoli salad, cheese ball, pretzels, etc etc and “pretzel salad” for dessert. Mom’s the one who called it that – I didn’t even know there were pretzels in it. (They were the crust that I thought were crushed nuts.) Heh – and I just found the recipe with the first page that Google gave me. Here is someone’s pretzel salad recipe. Sounds like the one we had. Oh, and there was lemonade too – which I spilled on the carpet right as we were going to start the game. Ann was pleased since that’s usually her, she said. Glad I could help. 🙂

Around 2pm the party broke up and I drove back home (stopping briefly at Staples). And then I ripped my two new George Harrison CDs (which I got from the post office before the shower) into MP3s. And am listening to Cloud 9 now. (Coincidentally, my favorite tune from the album is playing now. And no, there wasn’t a whole lot of gossip going on at the party, which is what the song is about.)

Every year around this time, I ponder my senior year in high school. If I weren’t a teacher who taught physics to seniors, this might be rather unusual behavior. But as I watch these young men and women sign each others senior books¹ and invite each other (and me) to graduation parties², I remember my own time doing much the same. So, since I’m in the process of cleaning out my closets (and not in an Eminem³ way), I got out my own senior book and looked through it.

I noticed that I didn’t have a lot of notes from classmates, but at least had some from the girls that I knew the best. And I reserved one quarter page just for Amy to write on. She read through the others and so started hers with “I can’t believe we’re seniors!” She was, at the time, in 8th grade. She’s so funneeeee!

Didn’t have a boyfriend, so the page reserved for one’s significant other was plastered with pictures and comments about Eric Idle. (Yes, Sylvester McCoy was barely a glint in my eye at the time!) No football at Newton, so the football page was covered in band photos.

When I looked in the pockets in the scrapbook, I found several senior photos. And the very first photo I looked at, I had *no* idea who the girl was. So I turned it over and read what the girl had written. “To a really smart, interesting kinda gal, who has great taste in music! I wish the best to you in everything you do! Good luck with the men in your life! Don’t forget me!” Sorry Randi! I well and truly forgot you! I feel so bad! At least the other photos in my pocket were of folks that I remember. But, GAH, the 80s hair styles!!!! It’s like watching one of those evil 80s teen movies!

My final comments on the scrapbook are about The Future???
What I might be doing next year at this time: Taking finals at Wright State University That was probably correct…
5 years: Still taking finals (with a double major I may need more than 4 years) That was definitely *not* correct. I didn’t have a double major. I started out in physics ed but quickly switched to chem ed and was done in 4 years. By 5 years hence from graduating, I was done with my first year teaching at Eaton.
10 years: Be teaching and maybe even visiting England By golly, hit that one spot on. Not only have I been teaching all this time, but I’ve been to England. Yup, six times… three within 10 years of graduating HS, IIRC.
Career goals: Become either an English or Physics teacher. As I mentioned before, I became a chemistry education major – while I was teaching at Eaton, I took extra classes to get my physics certification. So now I’m certified in both chemistry and physics and teach both. I notice how computers were nowhere in my vision at the time.
Outlook on Marriage: I’d rather not, at this point & time. I’ll wait until I’ve seen the world. Yeah, that one still sounds good to me.

Heh – it’s interesting for 33 1/3 year old treen to read the ramblings of 18 year old treen. Might not have been as interesting to you, but hey, there ya go. 🙂

¹ Since high school yearbooks don’t come out until the following year, there’s a tradition in our school to purchase a prefab scrapbook for your senior year. We get ours from Jostens, a company that specializes in removing money from the parents of seniors.
² Alas, I don’t usually go to the graduation parties. Most take place during Memorial Day weekend and I’m busy hangin’ with the girls (elsaf and judiang) at mom & dad’s cottage at Lake Loramie. The one exception was the year my cousin, Deanna, graduated. I left the girls at the Lake and went to Deanna’s graduation and then hung out with the family at Granny’s for awhile. Actually, now that I think about it, she had her party a different weekend – this was just for the graduation.
³ “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” by Eminem is *not* about housework.

LOL – elsaf‘s gonna be so jealous!

Your Husband Generator by Lady_Galadriel
Name
Your Husband Is
You Met	at a cheap café
You Have	0 children but 7 pets
You Live	Greece
In	a bungalow
You And Your Partner Are Best Known For	you’re charity work
Created with the ORIGINAL MemeGen!

Nice to know that Leo will get some siblings. I wonder what he’ll think of living in Greece, though…

While I was mowing the lawn this evening, I was trying to figure out why I hated it so much. Yes, it is hard work. I’m rather lazy. However, I do hard work a lot, despite being lazy. It can be near hell during the middle of the summer. However, we had a lovely spring evening tonight while I was mowing. When I get done, my hands feel like they’re still vibrating, but that’s really more funky than frustrating. So I think it all goes down to one thing – I used to have to mow the lawn when I was a kid. Cleaning the kitchen and mowing the lawn were the two tasks that I had to fulfill as an indentured slave under mom & dad. Oddly enough, those are two tasks that I now despise doing… Coincidence? I think NOT! 🙂

Anyway, I think I might try to mow my lawn myself this year, rather than pay someone to do it. It’s good exercise for me and it’s less expensive. Especially if I conveniently forget to reimburse mom and dad for the gasoline. (I use their lawn mower.)

So, an hour and a half after I started (and as the sun was quickly setting in the west) I finished with the lawn (even raking it). I still hate doing it, but it’s always nice when it’s done!

About 10 after 9pm tonight, I’m online and clicking away for folks on Kings of Chaos, when Zap! the power goes out. The Zap! was caused by ordinary lightning and it took out the entire block. So I got my rechargeable flashlight and found the cat. I read for a bit and decided to go to bed early. Oh yeah, and I was in the middle of drying my laundry when the outage happened… My underwear in particular. Of which I had no clean stuff left. Heh. Ironic, eh?

Thankfully, I’d only hours earlier figured out where my travel clock was and set that up to wake me at 6am and then it was bed time for Trina and Leo. And we were snoozing (though I don’t think either of us were actually asleep) when the air conditioner started back up again just a few minutes ago. So I thought I’d turn on the computer to make sure everything was OK. And heck, while I was checking, I’d write up a quick LJ entry about it. Still going to wait for the morning to dry my underwear, however. Probably tempting fate, but I don’t want to stay up for another hour in order to fold everything when it’s dry (and there are some clothes which ought to be folded in with the undies).

One comment on my power & light company: I called the emergency number, which was to an automated system, and it informed me that they already *knew* that my area was having an outage… Spooky! I hate psychic companies!